ArticleNature2015
Exceptional preservation of tiny embryos documents seed dormancy in early angiosperms.
Article in Nature, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed.
- The initiation of embryo growth in imbibed celery mericarps marks a key mechanism by which temperature signals are integrated to regulate germination timing.Journal of experimental botany · 2026Article
- The stepwise rise of angiosperm-dominated terrestrial ecosystems.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- 'Ruminate' endosperm - why and from where? A commentary on 'The development of the embryo and ruminate endosperm in an early-divergent angiosperm, Asimina triloba (Annonaceae)'.Annals of botany · 2025Article
- The seed morphospace, a new contribution towards the multidimensional study of angiosperm sexual reproductive biology.Annals of botany · 2024Article
- The role of fossils for reconstructing the evolution of plant development.Development (Cambridge, England) · 2024Article
- Visualizing embryogenesis in the seed.Plant physiology · 2024Review
- Cretaceous chloranthoids: early prominence, extinct diversity and missing links.Annals of botany · 2024Article
- Concluding Embryogenesis After Diaspora: Seed Germination in Illicium Parviflorum.Integrative and comparative biology · 2023Article
- Fire-released seed dormancy - a global synthesis.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2022Article
- Fire-prone Rhamnaceae with South African affinities in Cretaceous Myanmar amber.Nature plants · 2022Article
- Morphophysiological dormancy in the basal angiosperm order Nymphaeales.Annals of botany · 2019Article
- Highly Efficient Nanoscale Analysis of Plant Stomata and Cell Surface Using Polyaddition Silicone Rubber.Frontiers in plant science · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The rapid diversification of angiosperms through the Early Cretaceous period, between about 130-100 million years ago, initiated fundamental changes in the composition of terrestrial vegetation and is increasingly well understood on the basis of a wealth of palaeobotanical discoveries over the past four decades and their integration with improved knowledge of living angiosperms. Prevailing hypotheses, based on evidence both from living and from fossil plants, emphasize that the earliest angiosperms were plants of small stature with rapid life cycles that exploited disturbed habitats in open, or perhaps understorey, conditions. However, direct palaeontogical data relevant to understanding the seed biology and germination ecology of Early Cretaceous angiosperms are sparse. Here we report the discovery of embryos and their associated nutrient storage tissues in exceptionally well-preserved angiosperm seeds from the Early Cretaceous. Synchrotron radiation X-ray tomographic microscopy of the fossil embryos from many taxa reveals that all were tiny at the time of dispersal. These results support hypotheses based on extant plants that tiny embryos and seed dormancy are basic for angiosperms as a whole. The minute size of the fossil embryos, and the modest nutrient storage tissues dictated by the overall small seed size, is also consistent with the interpretation that many early angiosperms were opportunistic, early successional colonizers of disturbance-prone habitats.
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